During his speech at the recent 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. President Donald Trump bragged that the American economy has never been "hotter." Trump claimed that he inherited a broken economy from former U.S. President Joe Biden and turned things around in record time.

But other world leaders attending the event voiced strong concerns about the United States' political and economic wellbeing. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in his Davos speech, lamented that the U.S. has become increasingly unreliable for longtime allies.

In an article published by The Bulwark on January 28, Never Trump conservative Jonathan V. Last analyzes the state of the U.S. economy and lays out a variety of reasons why many Americans are feeling increasingly "bearish."

"The Conference Board's monthly consumer confidence survey came out this week, and the results were grim," Last explains. "Consumer confidence is now at the lowest level since 2014 — worse than it was at any moment during the pandemic, even. Why are people bearish about the economy? Perhaps because they see all the news about layoffs, for starters."

Last continues, "Amazon is laying off 16,000 employees. UPS cutting 30,000 jobs. Citigroup shed 1000 jobs in January and announced more cuts coming in March. Pinterest: 700 jobs, which is 15 percent of its workforce. Nike: 775 jobs. Meta: 1000 jobs."

The conservative journalist notes that although there are ways to put a positive spin on these "data points" — for example, saying that Amazon is "cutting management so that it can spend money on data center construction" — the "job destruction across so many sectors" is not encouraging.

To illustrate his point, Last references a CNBC chart that uses U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data and compares job creation under Biden in 2022 and 2023 to job creation under Trump in recent months. And the data, Last writes, isn't encouraging.

Other countries, according to Last, are looking at economic trends in the U.S. — and they're worried.

"(Trump) takes the view that economic actors should do what he wants, and so, he uses the levers of government to attempt to control the market," Last argues. "His toolbox includes the following: Those on-again, off-again tariffs which are announced, delayed, and canceled at his whim based on any number of factors…. The federal government taking ownership stakes in various private companies as Trump sees fit…. Sweetheart deals with certain businesses (both foreign and domestic) in order to obtain wealth for the Trump family. As a result of all this instability, the rest of the world is moving on from America."

Jonathan V. Last's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.


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